


keywords: Gay, Loving, Boyfriends

by lookupkate



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, BAMF John, John writes smut, M/M, Sherlock reads smut, accidentally at first, different first meeting, then on purpose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-08 14:21:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 17,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7761247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookupkate/pseuds/lookupkate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John starts writing gay romance while holed up in hospital. Sherlock reads the first fic on accident, and it sticks with him for days. He can't help but read more from the unknown writer. Little does he know, the writer isn't exactly unknown to him. The writer happens to be the A&E Doctor he's feuding with. </p><p>Christ, can you imagine what he'll think once he finds out?</p><p>For all my amazing readers, the ones noted and the ones not, who keep me thinking of different ways for these two idiots to kiss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Porn Preference: Normal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yarnjunkie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yarnjunkie/gifts), [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts), [DaringD](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaringD/gifts), [Tardisqueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tardisqueen/gifts), [Batik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batik/gifts), [MyriadProBold](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyriadProBold/gifts), [JunkenMetel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JunkenMetel/gifts), [mafm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mafm/gifts), [vixis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vixis/gifts), [Darth_Nonie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darth_Nonie/gifts), [Itsallgood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itsallgood/gifts), [PenelopeWaits](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenelopeWaits/gifts), [Fandoms_Unite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fandoms_Unite/gifts), [Le_Tabby_Cat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Le_Tabby_Cat/gifts), [Megabat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megabat/gifts), [kitmerlot1213](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitmerlot1213/gifts), [Oleta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oleta/gifts), [kree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kree/gifts), [JuJuBee (Marcy09)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marcy09/gifts), [EllieSaxon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieSaxon/gifts), [Doctor_Tinycat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doctor_Tinycat/gifts), [Jberry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jberry/gifts), [cheekycheekbones (Cheeycheekbones)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheeycheekbones/gifts), [Choice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Choice/gifts).



It was something to pass the time, something he started whilst in hospital all those weeks with nothing to do and nothing to hope for. Strange how much his writing had changed, how he'd moved from flirting characters to hard core pornographic stories so quickly. He supposed it was due to the response.

In the beginning, he was just honestly waiting for someone to tell him he was disgusting. He didn't think he was disgusting, but when you've lived your life as a closeted bisexual things get a bit mixed up in your head. That, and he'd never read smut before that summer. He'd figured that video porn was all there was, that the only way to experience arousal outside of his own fantasies was to watch two strangers fumble and gag and sweat on his laptop screen. 

He had. He'd watched a great deal of it. He was bored and horny and alone the majority of the time.

He never found out what made the hospital turn on the child protection on their wifi, just opened his laptop one day to find his bookmarked sites blocked. He would have been horrified if he found out that it was his own overuse that did it, but that was pure speculation. Speculation and anxiety on his part, because, seriously, each time a new doctor or nurse came in he was sure they could see his porn preference tattooed on his forehead (keyword: Gay, keyword: Loving, keyword: Boyfriends).

After a week of not being able to get his fix, and running low on fantasy wank material, he decided to search for gifs. Yes, they'd disabled the videos he wanted, but surely, a gif of some bloke fucking his fist would suffice in those difficult times. He'd found a trove of gifs along with links to short stories, fics, that played out exactly how he wished. Well, almost exactly.

He read through the stories he could find that he thought he might like over the next few days. One stuck out in his mind and before he knew it, he found himself writing a sort of prequel. A few paragraphs about how the two men met. Background. 

The author was happy at the gift and suggested that he make his own profile and write more, and with all the time he still had in recovery, not to mention upcoming rehabilitation, he decided it wouldn't be the worst idea at all.


	2. DoctorJohn

The first night in the bedsit was awful. The lack of Internet connection was honestly what pushed him over the edge. The place was pale and empty and felt incredibly dead. And there was no internet. No bloody Internet, which meant nothing to keep John's mind off the blank walls and the too-small bed, and the feeling that the room was slowly getting smaller each time his mind drifted. Yes, it was awful.

He made tea, a whole pot for one person, and sat on the edge of the bed staring at the far wall. He needed a comfortable chair and a small side table and a bloody gun. The unfortunate thing was that he knew it would be easier to get his hands on a gun than the other two items, even in a city overflowing with discount furniture. The secondhand chair would even cost more, unless he could find it in a kip somewhere, and he never quite got over the (possibly erroneous) uni story of the sofa that gave everyone in the science department crabs. 

Once his tea was tepid and undrinkable, and he was coming to terms with the fact that the time had passed without him noticing, he was done sitting and doing nothing and ready to sit and at least write about someone doing something. His laptop was set up on the small desk so he sat there and went about writing.

His screen name, DoctorJohn, always made him cringe, but it had been all he could think of at the time. He was comfortable telling himself it was the pain medication that took away all his sense of decency, and had decided to be happy that he hadn't gone with DoctorLove. That had unfortunately been an actual option he'd filtered past.

Since he didn't have the Internet, he was able to write in the notepad app without his moniker staring down at him the whole time, which helped. He already had a premise in mind; the lonely doctor. Cliché, yes, but he'd found that in this type of writing it was less about whether something was a cliché or not, and more about whether you could make it palpable. Your character could bugger the delivery boy as long as your readers wanted to know who came first, and where.

His lonely doctor ended up sitting in a coffee shop flirting with a nurse. 

At the beginning of all this, when he'd started writing his own fics, he wondered if he always fashioned the main character after himself. When he realised that, yes, he did, he wondered if that mattered. He hated wondering on that alone. He wanted to have a place other than the comments section where he could talk to other writers, a place less public. 

He'd made friendly with a few of the other writers, interestingly, they were all women, and had exchanged emails with one, but she had never written back and had seemed to disappear into the background just when he was starting to get followers. He wanted to write her again, ask if he'd said something wrong, but they weren't close and he figured she just got bored hearing about his pathetic life.

By the time his lonely doctor was pressing the mouthy nurse up against a wall outside the coffee shop, John was fairly sure people were going to like the story. He was fairly sure because he could barely keep himself from pawing at his own interested cock as the scene heated up.

'Oh,' he thought, 'naughty nurse might just need his mouth filled for him.'

He only managed just to finish the story before he was scrambling to the shower to work one out, panting against the fake tile and clenching his eyes closed.

_____

That next morning, across town, Sherlock Holmes found himself searching the Internet on anything to do with illicit doctor/nurse relations. He had a feeling that the victim of the latest crime he was working on had been embroiled in some sort of scandal in the recent past. His divorce from his first, and second wife were simply too close together to suggest anything but infidelity.

The second he typed it in, he realised he would have been better off with microfiche. He grimaced and scrolled through descriptions of pornography, looking for rumors. When he hesitated over a specific entry, a fictitious tale of a doctor and a nurse getting busy in a coffee shop, he told himself it was because of the particulars. He'd been looking for a male doctor and a female nurse, but the story spoke of a different pairing, and if he clicked on it, it was only because his mind was trying to figure out if he was missing something from the case. Maybe the doctor was closeted. Maybe he'd missed that.

His brother's voice chimed in to remind him how ridiculous that thought was, both that he had missed something and that reading this story would help in any way, but he pushed it away. 

Ah, the screen name! DoctorJohn. If the writer really was a doctor, perhaps there was some information he could glean after all.

He scrolled down and started to read. Then stopped. Then...started again after closing the door to the landing.

-'What are you going to do, doctor? Make me?' the nurse said, batting his eyelashes and pushing the tip of his tongue into his cheek tauntingly.-

Sherlock got halfway through before he needed to stand up and walk about a bit. It wasn't that he was enjoying it, really, but rather that he was embarrassed for the characters. They were crude and obvious and, yes, yes, embarrassing. It was all so embarrassing.

He ran back to his laptop and opened up a new search, the words mocking him even as he wrote them; can you get an erection from embarrassment?

The answer, less reassuringly than he'd hoped, was: 'well, yes, some people can, sometimes.' It wasn't very reassuring because Sherlock found himself in his early thirties having never dealt with such a conundrum, meaning he probably wasn't one of those 'some people'. That and the fact that his embarrassment occurred while reading what he'd been reading, and the answer was clear enough.

He went back to the story and attempted to ignore his erection. Instead of reading on he checked the publish date, just earlier that same day, and scrolled down to see what sort of comments people were leaving. Perhaps he wasn't the only one who found such an interaction embarrassing to watch.

He had to walk around a bit more before he could focus enough to read them. The first was so explicit that Sherlock wondered how the writer could manage not to be completely creeped out. Surprisingly, though, the rest of the comments were different. Most were a simple sentence about how the reader liked the story, and some went into further detail about what they liked, but all were supportive.

Sherlock let the mouse hover over the comment button for a few moments before slamming the laptop shut.

"Yoo-hoo!" Mrs Hudson said from the stairs, startling Sherlock into a strange crouched position on the sofa's edge.

When she walked through the door she paused for a second to take him in, looking like a mad house cat perched as he was, before walking on into the kitchen. 

"Mrs Hudson," Sherlock said, unable to move from his spot, "I believe I told you I'd be busy this morning working on a case."

She chuckled and went about cleaning off the kitchen table. "Yes, very busy. Busy enough that you've taken up a second job as a gargoyle, I see."

Sherlock did his best to frighten her away with a penetrating death stare, but she didn't seem to notice.

"What on earth have you done to this basin?" Mrs Hudson asked, upon seeing the scorch marks.

"Oh, for God's sake, woman! Leave me be!" Sherlock hollered in return, face going red.

"Rude," she stated, fluttering away, "simply rude."

The second she was out the door he was stomping across the flat and taking a bitterly cold shower, murmuring to himself. "Stupid Mrs Hudson, and stupid biology and stupid DoctorJohn!"


	3. Thorough List of Questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Misunderstandings. Of course.

It took Sherlock three days before he was able to look at the story again. He couldn't even bring himself to open his laptop before then, perusing the Internet on his mobile until his eyes got tired of the small print. During those three days he was more irritable than normal, and even Mrs Hudson noticed. She fed him more and he cursed this supposed doctor for it.

After three days of avoiding the story, he opened his laptop again to find it had been updated. Three more chapters.

"It's an utterly useless story," he grumbled, crossing his legs under himself and settling in on the sofa. "What on earth would I do with more chapters?"

He clicked on, making his way through the second, and then third chapter. He was surprised to find that there was actually a story between the two characters. At the end of the fourth chapter, the two men laying in bed after a shag that left Sherlock running to the loo for a quick intermission, Sherlock found himself scrolling down and clicking in the comment box. 

The cursor sat there, blinking back at him. He wasn't sure what he wanted to say. The story was good, it was actually good, and he wanted to know more about the characters. That was strange, because, though he was a voracious reader, he'd never been interested in fiction. He had thought, at the start of it, that he'd mostly be interested in the sex. That realisation had solidified, well, came, after he'd done so in the shower the next morning. 

Throughout the day he found himself becoming aroused just thinking about the characters, and realised that as the embarrassment and shock wore off, he wanted to read more. 

Now, after reading the full four chapters, he was more interested in the relationship, in how sweetly, how gently, the doctor treated the nurse. It horrified him, the intensity of emotion that came with that last scene, with those soft moments and the imagined breeze pushing at the curtains. He wanted to be in that room so badly, wanted to be in that bed, in those arms.

Angry at himself for stalling, he took a breath, and typed.

_____

John was waiting in the hallway of the hospital, the plastic chair digging into his sides, when he got a notification that he had a new comment. It wouldn't look good to be playing around on his mobile whilst being interviewed, he'd grant that, but he was still waiting for the interview to start, so it probably didn't count.

He pulled the mobile from his pocket and opened the email. 

It wasn't a screen name he recognised, which meant it wasn't a regular. He was always hesitant to open comments from people he didn't know, worrying they'd be the random Christian reminding him of his fast track to hell, or the bored middle aged loner with nothing better to do than tell him they didn't like the story.

When he opened the comment, he had a feeling it would be the latter. It was nearly half a page in length. Even the Christians didn't go that far.

'Dear DoctorJohn-'

And that was peculiar. No one said 'dear' in comments. 

'I'm not interested in pornography-'

And John had to stop and scoff at that. Sure, Mr/Ms Fancypants, you're the only person to ever read anything like this that wasn't interested in the sex bits.

'although I have to admit to have been moved by that as well,-'

Alright then.

'I want to know more about these characters. Are they in love? I've never been in love, but I have a feeling that you were writing them as such. How does one know if they're in love? Have you been in love before?

Who did you base them on? Are you one of them, the doctor, perhaps? Is the other character your ideal mate, someone you wish existed, or is it someone you already know? Does it mirror your partner?

I've only ever been in one relationship before, and even then it ended before we kissed. How would one go about starting a relationship that would lead to this type of closeness? 

Are you gay? Have you tried each of the positions you write, and, if not, how do you go about researching them? I'm assuming you're a man-'

And thank god he was being called in for his interview, because he really didn't know what to say to an obvious teenager, a well-read teenager, and one with an large vocabulary, but a teen nonetheless. His stomach turned at the thought and his brain kept throwing images of himself in cuffs. The pedophile. The enabler. The pervert, giving out sex suggestions to a child.

_____

Sherlock was back to being irritated. The writer hadn't responded, and he'd asked some very serious questions. Questions, yes, that he would never even go near in a non-anonymous setting, but still. 

After waiting two hours and then giving up completely, Sherlock found himself sitting in the morgue and checking his mobile. He should have been focusing on the liver. It was a good liver. Well, had been a good liver. Now it was a good specimen, and he couldn't even give it the respect it deserved.

"Who are you hoping to hear from?" Molly chirped, tucking a lock of hair behind one ear and trying not to sound overly keen. Everything she said sounded overly keen to her own ears.

"What? Nothing!" Sherlock squawked, flushing a bit and stuffing his mobile back in his pocket.

Molly perked up at that. She'd seen Sherlock in all kinds of moods, but she'd never seen him flustered. "I won't make fun of you," she murmured, thinking of her own fears.

Sherlock was silent for almost twenty minutes before he cleared his throat and answered her. "I'm reading a story online," he said, giving her a look that told her to stop getting so blasted excited, and let him finish. "I left a comment for the writer and I haven't received a response."

"Writers get busy," Molly soothed. "If they aren't professional writers, then they have whole professions to deal with as well. How long ago did you leave the comment?"

Sherlock's lips twisted and he crossed his arms. "Two, three hours ago."

"Oh!" Molly replied, suffused with relief. "Well, that's fine. I'm sure they're just going about their day! Sometimes I have to wait a few day's time to get answers to questions I pose online."

"You...read stories online as well?" Sherlock asked, finding the conversation a bit suffocating.

"Yes, mostly fanfic. Fem superheroes and-" she started, cutting herself off at the look on Sherlock's face. "Did you not mean fic?"

"Thank you for the liver," Sherlock said blandly, walking out of the room and not looking back.

"Brilliant, Molls, tell him all about your stupid interests and scare him off," she mumbled to herself.

_____

 

When Sherlock finally made it home, walking the long way and refusing to check his mobile, he found tea set out on a tray with finger sandwiches. He peeled back the plastic and picked up one of the sandwiches, nibbling it as he walked to the far wall in the sitting room and went back over all the evidence he had from the case. 

Which was: nothing. Everything he'd thought would lead to something ended up leading nowhere, and he was starting to wonder if he'd been wrong all along. He was about to start tearing it all down when he felt the notification go off on his mobile. It was strange as he'd only set it that day and wasn't used to the haptic yet.

He fumbled opening the mobile and almost dropped it. When he finally opened the email and started reading he huffed and nearly threw the mobile to the floor.

"Oh, for Christ's sake!" 

The response stared back at him, unable, or unwilling, to change even as he glared at it.

'It was very nice to get such a thorough list of questions, and while you deserve answers to them, I'm not sure I'm the person you should be asking. I know it's difficult to ask your parents about things like sex. I would suggest speaking to your doctor. You can ask to see them without your parents permission if you live in the UK. Although I would like to tell you to continue reading my work, this site is really meant for adults. Please don't take that as an insult.'


	4. Arse

When John received the response, he was horrified. Of course, he supposed that was right. He should have been. It wasn't the first time in his life that an assumption got away from him; he was human after all. He let himself feel poorly over it a bit more as he read through the email for a second time.

'Dear DoctorJohn,

The implication in your response seems to be that my lack of experience must mean I'm a child. I hope you realise now how insulting that is. I'm well past the beginning of adulthood. 

If you still wish to refuse me answers, I will have to assume it's because you're an arse.'

Short, but sweet. 

John sighed once more and typed out what he hoped seemed an honest apology. The arse bit had him raw around the edges, sure, but he suspected he deserved that.

'Anonymous,

I'm so sorry. I really didn't mean to offend you. I think we should talk in private. If you'll give me your email address I'll make sure not to publish it. Once again, I'm sorry.'

He hit send and sat back on his uncomfortable wooden chair. He had things to do, what with being accepted at the hospital and needing to buy a few pairs of scrubs and other essentials, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to stop thinking of this bizarre interaction until he received a reply.

He went about making tea and breakfast, eyes flitting back to the screen even as he knew he would have to hit the refresh button to get anything to come up, and resigned himself to wait.

_____

Sherlock was at home working on a cold case to keep his mind off the one he had yet to solve, because it was only a matter of time, wasn't it, when he would get the email. 

Oh, perhaps not so much of an arse. He wiped his hands on his trousers and thought about the prospect of telling him to hang. It would feel satisfying, if only for a bit. It was difficult for Sherlock to think long term, always had been, but this time something pulled at his stomach. 

'Don't write this off,' it said, 'don't.'

He sniffed loudly in agitation before setting up a new email account and sending the information to the writer. No matter how much he wanted to ignore the man, he just couldn't. He'd meant what he'd asked, and was set on getting answers. When he was set on something, it got done. 

The writer must have been on the internet still, because Sherlock received an email almost immediately. He sat down to read it and sipped his tea.

'Hi,

I'm John-'

Obviously,Sherlock thought.

'I'm really sorry about the misunderstanding. Would you like to talk here? I can answer your questions. Well, some of them.

John'

Sherlock scrunched up his nose and replied. 

'John,

It should have been expected. Most people are idiots. If you really are a doctor, you should definitely work on getting rid of assumptions like the one you made, for your patient's sake.

You have my questions, and seem to have the day off as its coming up on half ten, so I would appreciate if you got back to me.'

He paused after the last sentence, and added a bit more.

'I really did enjoy your story. I hope to read more of your work in the future.'


	5. Unprofessional

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesus Christ.

Three days, three days back working, and he was exhausted. They weren't even full shifts, but for god's sake, his body wasn't used to it. He'd spent much too much time sitting around in that bloody hospital bed feeling sorry for himself and writing filth. 

He finished the last of the coffee, overcooked but hot, and picked up the patient file on his way to the waiting room. His eyes barely even rose from the file as he called out the name on it, the man coming up next to him and following him through the swinging doors.

"On any medication, Mr Holmes?" he asked, readying the scale.

"No, and call me Sherlock," the man replied quickly.

"Alright, Sherlock. On the scale and then I'll get your temp," John said, turning to get the thermometer and blood pressure monitor.

Sherlock stepped on the scale and huffed a long suffering sigh.

"You could could use a bit more weight," John said, noting the number and setting the file to the side.

"As could you," Sherlock shot back, his voice defensive. "Have trouble with your appetite?"

John finally looked him in the eye. He was...an arsehole. Yes, pretty, fine, but an arsehole. He got a sneer for his appraisal and John pulled the plastic chair out with a loud scrape. 

"I think we'll leave the doctoring up to me, today," he said as Sherlock slid into the seat.

"Of course," Sherlock said under his breath. "God forbid someone without a license be right for once."

John ignored him and took his temperature and blood pressure. When he'd jotted it all down he nodded towards the door and walked away. Sherlock followed, begrudgingly.

"Says here you got into a fist fight," John said as he readied the room and sat in the only comfortable chair, looking at Sherlock as the man fussed with the tissue paper on the exam table.

"It wasn't a fist fight," Sherlock disagreed. "I was helping apprehend a suspect. A murder suspect."

John was startled at that and looked back down at the file to see how he'd missed that the man was an officer. Now that he thought of it, he did dress like one of those detective's in modern shows; dark charcoal suit and white collared shirt beneath a massive coat. He chart said nothing of it. He supposed it wasn't always written down, though.

"You're police, then," he murmured, looking on the back of all three pages.

"No, I'm not," Sherlock shot back, as if insulted.

"Alright," John said looking up and wondering what the buggering fuck was wrong with the man. "Tell me what happened."

"I hit him and now my wrist is...sore," Sherlock said, shifting in his seat and crossing his arms with a wince.

"Did you hit with a tight fist, or-" John tried, making notes in shorthand for himself.

"I know how to hit a man without hurting myself," Sherlock huffed.

'Obviously not,' John thought, looking the man over as the sentence he'd said sank in and he huffed and looked away.

"Let's see it, then," John said, watching as the man rose and let the suit jacket he was wearing fall back to the cot. The right sleeve was buttoned, however, the left definitely couldn't have been, even if he wanted it to be. "How long ago did you injure this?" he asked, concern swelling as he pushed the sleeve up and started to palpate. 

"Monday," Sherlock admitted, face screwed up in pain.

"Three days ago? Why aren't you on anti-inflammatories?" John asked, turning Sherlock's arm and gritting his teeth. 

"I don't take medication," Sherlock hissed.

"Yes, well, that brilliant thought, and the fact that you didn't think to come in until today, might have got you into a spot of trouble. It'll take a while for the swelling to go down, but we'll have to start you on something for it immediately," John said, rotating Sherlock's hand slowly and then letting go. "You do a lot of punching? Boxing perhaps?"

"Not in years," Sherlock replied, rubbing at his inner wrist, "why?"

"Hmm," John replied, jotting something else down. "We'll need X-rays."

Sherlock rolled his eyes and sat back and John did his best not to snort.

_____

By the time Sherlock made it back into the room, John had been sitting and looking at the X-rays for a while. He was stumped. The man was lying to him, he knew that, but he didn't know why. Surely the better story was that he wrenched his wrist doing something around the house, not that he'd committed assault. Maybe the man was just so keen on those around him being in awe that the aggressive story was more appealing to cover up his over abundance of self-love.

Sherlock cleared his throat and sat across from John, not liking the look on the doctor's face.

"Well," John sighed, scrunching his nose up in a way that made Sherlock want to scream, "the good news is, there isn't a fracture."

"The bad news?" Sherlock pressed, already tired of this game.

"You're going to need a brace for a while," John said, finally looking up.

"I'm not going to use a bloody brace!" Sherlock hissed, thinking this whole ridiculous adventure had been a bad plan.

"You are going to use a brace," John replied with practiced calm, "and you're going to take it easy with the...repetitive action."

Sherlock's cheeks coloured and he grew angrier. "I told you, I injured myself hitting a man. I don't know what you THINK you've figured out, but you're obviously completely incompetent at your job."

John was fine with that. Let the arsehole say he was incompetent. Seriously. It was what came next that turned the tables on his calm.

"Any decent doctor would be able to self diagnose their psychosomatic limp and learn to take a bloody sleeping pill at night," Sherlock said, seeing things unravel and not able to stop his own mouth.

"At least I didn't hurt myself wanking like a maniac!" John spat, face contorting.

They both sat there, stunned into silence and breathing roughly, for a moment before John spoke.

"I'm...so sorry. That was completely unprofessional of me."

Sherlock stood and stormed from the room, cheeks hot and mind screaming bloody murder.


	6. Ruin

When Sherlock made it through the front door of his flat, still murderously embarrassed and angry, he found a small box waiting for him. Inside was a wrist brace. He really would have to shake his brother for breaking into the NHS computer system.

He sat at the kitchen table with a sigh and stared at the thing. His wrist wasn't happy. He wasn't happy. Overall, everything was horrible.

The doctor he'd met with was almost right; he'd hurt himself wanking. He was wrong about he way it happened, though. It wasn't that he was doing so furiously for days, but that he'd chosen to give his right hand a break and used his left in its place. He wasn't ambidextrous, and it had only taken a few minutes of focused work before he'd obviously pulled something. Yes, it was the repetitive movement, but not for as long as the doctor seemed to believe.

It angered Sherlock that the man had picked up on it at all. He'd assumed that the doctor would believe his story and he'd be given advice and pretty much left alone. He wondered briefly if that was how people felt when he deduced them, that painful bit where secrets were torn from them and brought to light.

He sighed again and put the brace on before going into his bedroom and climbing under the covers with his laptop. The world could hang, he was done.

Funny how the email had turned into his safe place. He had yet to reply to it, but he'd read it multiple times. He was still on the fence about how honest to be in return, even several days later. Maybe today would be the day he got up the guts to reply.

'Anonymous,

I guess I'll just go about answering your questions. No one has approached me like this before and, to be honest, it feels rather personal. I'll just hold tight to the fact that you don't know who I am and try to live through the slight embarrassment. That was sarcasm, just so you know.

The characters in my story are in love. I'm glad that it came across as such. When I first started writing, I read a lot of stories where the characters only seemed to have met to bugger, like you see in pornos. That always rubbed me the wrong way, pun intended. I wanted my characters to care about each other. Sex can be so much more fulfilling when the other person really wants to make you happy.

I have been in love. If asked a few years ago I would have told you it had been several times, but now I think it was really just the once. I don't know how to describe it. He was someone I wanted to protect, someone I wanted to be truly happy. I wanted us to move in together, wanted to get him away from the world that was hurting him so much. It was his job, though, and that didn't happen. I think that's love; when someone else's happiness matters to you so much that you'd change huge things in your life to ensure it.

There was a long time where my chest felt it would burst every time I saw him, when I felt that I couldn't push down a stupid smile. I think that was lust. Obsession. That's usually how things start out. When you like someone your body fills you with all these chemicals that make you want to be around that person even more. When those die down, you usually have a pretty good bond, so you stick around.

Some people don't fall in love, and that's okay.

As for who they're based on, the main character is a lot like me. I always think of writing these stories as wish fulfillment. The other character isn't anyone I know, just someone I thought would fit in the story. Sometimes I like to be pushed around a bit. 

God. That was honest.

As for getting into a relationship like the one I wrote, I think it just takes time and luck. I've been in a lot of relationships, with women and some men, but I've only been in love that one time. I'm a private person, and I usually keep how I feel to myself. In that one situation, I couldn't. Maybe that was the difference, maybe it was that I was finally honest with someone.

And now for the embarrassing part. I've tried all the positions, yes. I'm sure you could research them, but they're all from personal experience in my story. Not everyone likes penetrative sex, or oral sex, but I do, so I write it that way.

I think I've answered almost everything, so now I'll ask you some questions.

How did you find my writing?  
Will you read more of my stories?  
Do you see yourself in any of the characters?  
Do you write?

DoctorJohn'

He closed his eyes and took a deep breathe, then clicked reply and started to type.

_____

When John finally got back to his bedsit he was exhausted. He'd been out of line with one of his patients and, even five hours later, couldn't let it go. He felt wound tight. He needed an outlet. He picked his laptop up and took it to bed, sitting with his back against the wall and wishing he had a comfortable chair.

He was thinking about having a long, luxurious wank, the kind that teased for an hour before anything came of it. His inbox, however, had other plans.

He hadn't forgot about his mystery commenter, but after two days without a response, he figured they were gone. They weren't, though. They were back. He opened the email and started to read.

'In the past three days I've read everything you've written, including the email (multiple times), and have come to the conclusion that you have become my favourite writer. It's a strange conclusion to come to, seeing as I am a reader and have been for the twenty five most recent years of my life. 

I hope you realise that I don't say this lightly. You have come into a place where there was no feeling, no version of human interaction at all that wasn't painfully scientific, and have turned that all on its head. I crave it now, as I never did. I can't help but hope to one day be lucky enough to be held tightly in someone's arms.

In short, you have ruined my life. Ruined it, and done so in such a way that I'm asking for more. Please, please ruin me again.'

A shot of arousal hit John so soundly that he had to close his eyes tightly against it and swallow hard. When he finally had hold of himself again, he read on.

'Now for the boring part.

I found your story while looking for a real life version of it. I'm the mouthy nurse to your lonely doctor. I do in fact write, but only scientific papers. Fiction is brand new to me.

Please continue to write, as I am often bored and in need of entertainment.

Yours,  
Anon'

And Jesus, that didn't help. The mouthy nurse to his lonely doctor? Bloody hell. John found himself pressing the heel of his palm against his crotch and leaning back a bit to push the laptop out of his lap.

The second he had his hand in his pants, gripping his interested cock in a loose fist, a man's face came to mind. Perhaps it was the reference to his work, or perhaps it was the word mouthy, but the face in his mind's eye was that of his patient. Yes, that one. It scowled at him and rolled its eyes and John let out a huff of a laugh.

"Still upset that I called it how it was?" he asked the empty room.

'Hardly a legitimate diagnosis,' the patient replied, voice low and gravely.

"Mmm," John murmured, stroking himself and recalling those beautiful eyes. "It was before you pushed me."

'I thought you liked to be pushed, John,' the patient said, smile licking at the corners of his lips.

"Oh, you brat," John chuckled. "You brat."


	7. Safe

He didn't know what that feeling would be like, that moment when things went from sweetness to heavy petting. He lay back on his bed and closed his eyes, imagining himself in one of the scenes he'd read. It wasn't one where he's pushy, not one where he takes charge, but one where's he's soft and immobile in the face of affection.

That's how he thought he'd be; soft, unable to breathe, let alone move.

He wanted to write DoctorJohn and ask him how you know when you're ready for sex. Wanted to know definitively when it will happen. He'd only been in what he thinks is that situation once, close enough to breathe someone else's scent, to taste their lips.

At the time, he'd been so horrifically nervous that the arousal that came with being that near was twisted and painful somehow. Once again, embarrassment. He was embarrassed that his body was reacting the way it was, that it was completely out of his control. All that just from a kiss. He'd felt foolish. He'd pretended to be fine, but it was sour in his stomach.

"Stop," he murmured to his anxious brain, "just...stop."

He breathed deeply and tried again. DoctorJohn was there, smiling down at him, brushing a hand through his hair and breathing easily. Relaxed. It was soft, not rushed. 

'Evening,' the imagined author said.

Sherlock hummed in response.

The next words from the apparition were jumbled. 'Sweet,' and 'gorgeous,' and 'beautiful,' tripping over each other. Sherlock willed his brain to slow down.

'Beautiful,' DoctorJohn murmured.

Sherlock could smell the rain, and the tea he'd made that was cooling by the side of the bed, and that peculiar burning scent that always came with the first use of the radiator after summer.

He turned his head on the pillow and then his entire body, willing the imagined man to crawl onto the bed behind him. He swore he could feel the dip in the mattress and the arm wrapped around his waist as he sucked on his tongue and settled in.

"I miss you," he murmured, the light growing bluish in the empty room as night took over.

'We haven't even met,' DoctorJohn said, it whispered against his neck with a laugh that was surprisingly not mocking.

"I know," Sherlock said, pulling the spare pillow to his chest and digging his fingers into it.

'Don't fret,' DoctorJohn said. 'We'll meet soon enough.'

Sherlock swallowed hard and willed himself to sleep, this little exercise bringing up feelings too fragile to easily turn into imagined seduction.

'You're safe,' the author murmured as Sherlock drifted off. 'I've got you.'


	8. Call Me John

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To the person who used the wrong pseud..I won't post your comment. Go ahead and try again with the right one. You have no idea how many johnlock posts I've accidentally put on my dog's blog!!

It was idiotic. He should have seen the man swing at him, but somehow he didn't. And yes, he'd got the drop on the killer eventually, after sussing out the details of the case that had bothered him for weeks, but he'd done so with what he was sure was a broken rib or two.

Now he was back at A&E, sitting glumly in the waiting room, the adrenalin and high of finishing a case long gone. Worse than that, he was sitting next to Lestrade. The man apparently thought Sherlock needed a bloody chaperone.

The child next to them screamed loudly and Sherlock turned to glare at it. Face red and puffy from crying, it huffed an exhausted sigh and started to cry louder as mucus bubbled from its nose.

He would NEVER have one of those. Christ. They leaked and wailed and didn't listen.

He was thinking on ways to get it to stop when his name was called. He looked up to find the same doctor as before, that handsome arsehole who had somehow deduced him. His lips turned down and he pouted more fiercely than the child as the man walked over and wheeled him into the (blessedly quiet) back room.

"I don't need a wheelchair," Sherlock said, trying to stand but finding it difficult with such a strong hand keeping him from doing so. "I told them I don't need a wheelchair."

"Having trouble breathing?" John asked, looking down at Sherlock's chart to hide the small grin that had found its way onto his lips when he saw the brace Sherlock was wearing.

"Some. Possibly. Not enough to matter," Sherlock said shortly. "Will you let me out of his thing?"

"Mmm," John murmured, licking his thumb and folding the first sheet back.

Sherlock forgot his request at that, and stayed sitting. Something about it was nearly pornographic. The long breath John drew in before looking up didn't help either.

"On the scale," John said, holding the chart at his side and watching just how easily Sherlock really could get around.

John rolled his eyes and helped him up when, on the second try, Sherlock cried out in pain. He jotted down weight and temperature and blood pressure in silence before taking Sherlock down the long hallway towards the exam room. He palpated gently and it obviously hurt, Sherlock grinding his teeth in pain and wincing.

"I need to look inside that chest. I'll get you a room set up for when you're done and find some pain medication," John said, handing Sherlock off to a tech.

"Nothing strong," Sherlock said over his shoulder, and he looked so worried that John simply nodded as the door closed.

He'd seen the previous drug addiction and matching stint in rehab, and wasn't planning on morphine. This patient seemed to keep forgetting he was a doctor.

As he set up the room he thought back to the fantasy that had overcome him the other night. He cleared his throat and reminded himself that it had nothing to do with reality.

_____

Sherlock mentally flipped through every new thing he'd gleaned from the doctor. Now that his heart had stopped racing at the man's presence, and the embarrassment settled down, he was able to see him.

Yes, there was the insomnia and loss of appetite, but now it came together. PTSD. He'd been to war. The way he held himself, and the injury that was hiding under his scrubs (Leg? Shoulder? Abdomen) gave that away so glaringly Sherlock was ashamed at himself for not seeing it earlier.

He also saw that the doctor hated his living situation. He'd seen into the man's office on the trip to X-ray, and the folded sleeping bag gave it away. That and the frequently used toothbrush stuck in with the pencils on his desk.

He closed his eyes and let himself be manhandled into position, and willed his body not to react badly.

_____

John was ready for Sherlock when he made it back, helping him out of the wheelchair and onto the exam table. Luckily, the ribs were only bruised. He applied an ice pack, wrapped it to Sherlock's chest and gave him a few paracetamol.

"Same stuff you get at the store," John said, handing Sherlock a small plastic cup of water. "You won't need anything stronger."

The rest of the medical care went easily, and Sherlock was actually surprised that the doctor was treating him professionally after their last meeting. He almost believed the man didn't remember him. He was perfectly fine with that.

Just as John was wheeling Sherlock out and telling him to take his medication and rest, a man burst through the back door. How he'd got by the security, John wasn't sure, but he had a knife. He was on the floor in seconds with John's knee in his back. Sherlock kicked the knife from his hand and wheeled himself back a bit to grab a roll of bandage tape, tossing it to John so he could tie the man's wrists.

Sherlock managed to holler for Lestrade, who had come to make sure the genius actually sought medical attention, and the DI was at John's side immediately and cuffing the suspect with actual metal cuffs, though he suspected the bandages might have held.

John wheeled Sherlock back out of the way and they waited there, side by side, for Lestrade to finish.

"You always bring a police officer with you wherever you go?" John asked, lips curling as he heaved in deep breaths.

Sherlock laughed, the thrill of the earlier chase coming back with new adrenalin. "Don't know when you'll run into a knife wielding ex-husband."

"Ex-husband?" John asked.

"The tan line where a wedding ring should be," Sherlock said, leaning back in the wheelchair and pointing. "Recently stopped wearing it. He also had a photo in his wallet. The pregnant woman that came in earlier was in it, though much less pregnant."

"When did you see his wallet?" John asked, face breaking into a full grin.

"When Lestrade removed it," Sherlock replied, looking up at John, puzzled at his reaction.

"Brilliant," John breathed, smile going silly as he chuckled again and shook his head.

"What?" Sherlock asked, still unsure of whether he was being made fun of or not.

"You must be some kind of genius," John replied. "That's how you knew I wasn't sleeping at your last visit."

Sherlock swallowed roughly, hating the memory of that day. He couldn't stop himself from his deductions, however, and the ones he had made earlier came spilling from his mouth. When John paused he thought he'd stepped too far.

"It was just-" he tried.

"You hungry?" John interrupted, licking his lips before going on. "I'm off in five and want to grab something to eat. There's a good Indian place around the corner."

Sherlock took a moment to catch up, but when he did he forgot all about his distaste for food. He smiled back, it going lopsided and funny, and nodded before speaking again. "Starving, Doctor Watson."

John snorted a bit and continued to smile. "Call me John."


	9. Assistance Required

When John was finally done with his last notes he hurried back to his office to find Sherlock tapping away at his laptop. His personal laptop. For a second, wind seeming to rush in his ears, he stood frozen in the doorway.

"Are you done?" Sherlock asked, voice emotionless enough to tell John he hadn't seen anything he would consider untoward. 

"Just about, yeah," John said, pulling in a breath and lurching forward to slap the lid closed on the thing and grab his coat.

Sherlock winced back and only just managed to keep his fingers from being crushed. He looked up with a frown and John raised his eyebrows in challenge. He'd forgot who he was dealing with. John didn't let him get away with anything. It had something crashing around in his chest at the thought; ostensibly his heart.

"Coming?" John asked, noting the slight confusion and smiling as he clicked off the desk lamp.

Sherlock stood carefully and followed John out into the hall. 

He'd convinced himself in the fifteen (not bloody five) minutes since their little tussle with the baddie in the hallway that he wasn't attracted to John. That he was interested in him intellectually, and that was it. He told himself that the man might come in handy somewhere down the line. The second they were sitting across from each other in the small booth at the Indian restaurant, that sureness disappeared.

"Tell me what you do," John demanded, sitting back and doing something utterly lewd with his straw.

Sherlock let his eyes fall from those lips and to the table. "I'm a consulting detective. Only one in the world. When the police are out of their depths, which is always, they come to me."

"Which is why that Lestrade fellow was here tonight," John said, sipping his water and narrowing his eyes, and then cocking his head to the right. "Except...why was he there?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes and shook his head, curls bouncing. "Didn't believe I'd actually get medical attention. He's under the assumption that I can't take care of myself."

John's eyebrows did a little hop and his lips curled. "He's not the only one."

Sherlock crossed his arms and winced. His chest still hurt and he was having a strange reaction to close proximity with the doctor and he nearly leapt out of his skin when the man reached across the small table and gently gripped his forearm.

"Deep breaths," John murmured, eyes searching and face so caring that Sherlock wanted to crawl under the table to hide from it. "Come on, now."

Sherlock's nose scrunched up but he let his arms fall to his sides and took a deep breath.

John was back to smiling then, a light in his eyes. "There you are."

Sherlock's eyes fluttered closed as the waiter came to take their order. John ordered tandoori chicken and naan and nudged him with the toe of his shoe until he mumbled something that sounded enough like chicken tikka masala for the waiter to nod and leave.

"Were you going to let me eat alone?" John teased.

Sherlock shrugged and John swallowed uncomfortably.

"Look," John said, sitting up a bit, "if I was too forward about-"

"I consider myself married to my work," Sherlock blurted, unable to stop himself from putting up some sort of emotional barrier.

"Oh, of course," John said, eyebrows furrowed as he tried to understand what was going on.

"I take my work very seriously," Sherlock went on. "Which is why I can admit this next part."

John swallowed and reached for his water again, busying himself with it as though his entire being didn't hang on the next few words.

"I need an assistant," Sherlock said, nodding to himself as if things were finally going in a direction he was comfortable with. "A live-in assistant. As you've said, you doubt my ability to care for myself, and as we both know, you abhor your current living situation. It's a nice flat, two bedrooms and a fireplace in the sitting room. Central London."

"Sorry," John interrupted, "you want me to move in with you?"

Sherlock finally built up enough courage, now that he had John on uneasy footing, to look the man in the eyes and take on his usual confident persona. "I believe we both want that. Besides, you proved to be quite useful tonight."

John's mouth hung open for a while before he slammed it shut.

"We'll look at the flat after dinner," Sherlock pressed.

"Tonight," John said, halfway between a question and a statement.

"I thought you'd want to make sure I take it easy," Sherlock said with a raised brow.

John huffed out a strange laugh and ran his hands through his hair. "Yeah, well, would be nice to get out of the bedsit. Not sure I can afford a place in Central London, though."

"It's a very good deal," Sherlock assured. "Your pension alone should cover it."

"And you're going to pay me to...what? To follow you around? Do I have to quit my job?" John asked as the food arrived.

"Hardly. The assistance won't take up much time at all. Simply a second pair of eyes," Sherlock said, picking at his plate.

"But you'll pay me," John pressed, because it sounded much too good to be true, and he'd lived a life that had proven how badly those situations could turn.

"A percentage of every case we take," Sherlock agreed.

John seemed to weigh that in his mind and like it. He started in on his food and Sherlock relaxed for the first time that night.

_____

It was much later than Mrs Hudson stayed up and the whole of the building was cast in shadow. John helped Sherlock up the stairs, his daypack over his shoulder and swaying as he did, and into the flat. It was crowded and lived in, something John never seemed to manage at any of his previous flats, including the bedsit. 

He helped Sherlock to the kitchen and stood looking around. They were both breathing hard, John from the exertion and his out of shape body, and Sherlock from the injury to his ribs. The only sound was their mingled panting and the light rain on the far window.

"It's..." John started, not sure what word encapsulated something so unique, "full."

Sherlock huffed and stood with a wince, clearing off the kitchen table by moving things to the already crowded counters.

"Stop, just," John said, stilling him with a hand on his back, "sit back down."

Sherlock did with some effort and John went rummaging through the icebox for a fresh ice pack. He didn't seem to notice the bag full of toes, which was fortunate, and Sherlock wondered again why he'd thought it such a brilliant idea to bring him straight home.

'Because you like him,' the voice in the back of his head intoned as John turned back in full doctor mode.

"Let's get this shirt off."

It should have felt patronising, but all Sherlock could think was how no one ever touched him so gently. He let John remove his shirt and sat there as the man stuck the old ice pack in the icebox and came back over to wrap the new one tight to his body. The fingers worked quickly, tucking and wrapping and then smoothing down Sherlock's shoulders as John checked to see how much pain he was in.

"Alright," he murmured, apparently seeing what he needed for confirmation, "let's get you to bed."

Sherlock nodded towards his bedroom and John helped him along, though walking on a flat surface didn't truly require it. Once in the bedroom, Sherlock turned on his bedside lamp and John looked around, puzzled. The room was orderly, almost as orderly as John's own. In the open closet, seven or so nearly identical suits hung pristinely next to twice as many pressed shirts and an abundance of ties in a myriad of colours. The only personal items out were two books on the bedside table, and even those were perfectly stacked. 

"I forgot to show you your bedroom," Sherlock said, brow furrowed.

John shrugged. "I can sleep on the sofa, do most nights."

"Nonsense," Sherlock said with a weak wave of his hand. "The room is made up. I alerted Mrs Hudson. It's at the top of the stairs. Fresh linens and all."

"Mrs Hudson?" John asked, shifting on his feet as he realised he was just standing in Sherlock's bedroom waiting to be dismissed.

"The landlady. Loo is through that door," Sherlock added, gesturing to the frosted glass, and then, when John raised an eyebrow, "second door in the hall."

"So, I should just," John asked motioning with his finger upstairs.

"If you'd like," Sherlock said nervously.

John looked as if he was thoroughly confused with his own decision making skills. "Alright, I'll see you in the morning, then."

Sherlock nodded and waited for John to leave before getting out his pyjamas and standing by the loo door to watch the silhouette of the man brush its teeth and take a piss. Not horribly romantic, no, but domestic at least. When John had washed his hands and gathered his things he paused with his hand over the light switch. 

Sherlock moved from the door so quickly he almost cried out in pain, realising at the last moment that his own silhouette would be brought into sharp relief when the light went out. He wondered if the pause on John's part had been intentional.

"Night," John shouted from the hallway.

"Night," Sherlock choked in return.


	10. Man Of His Dreams

And so, yes, maybe it had become an obsession. John had only just made his way upstairs and Sherlock was already pulling his laptop out and opening the over-used tab. Just one chapter, he promised himself, just one chapter before bed.

He picked his favourite, the one where the two men lay in bed the morning after their first tryst and kissed softly in the light of the growing dawn. He was just getting to the best part when an alert lit up in the bottom right of his screen.

_____

John was sitting up in bed, the fresh sheets soft and cool against his skin. He sent the email seconds before and was waiting for a reply, mobile tight in his hand. It had only been a few days since he'd received the email with the request. 'Ruin me again,' anonymous had said.

Now, as he sat there waiting for a response, wondering if one would come anytime soon, he was struck with how much he wanted a connection with Anonymous. It felt silly, how a little flattery had won him over, bowled him over even. Although, no one had approached him that way. Even when he was receiving flattery, it wasn't so poignant, so raw.

He looked at the ceiling for a while before looking back down at the small screen. His email had contained one sentence, and maybe it was just too much to ask. 'Tell me about yourself,' seemed like something you would say to a prospective date, he thought. In the next second he realised why it rang so true; he'd pretty much said the same thing that night to Sherlock.

And, Christ, Sherlock. The man was stubborn and strange and John was transfixed. But no, it was a dead end. Married to his work. John had thought there was something there, some frisson of heat between them, as the DI stood over the ex-husband that day. He supposed it was just transference; his interested cock in its interested state from the adrenalin alone. That had happened before, after all. Only a tish more often than infrequently.

The new email showed up from anonymous just as John was wondering if he should have a quick wank, and he opened it with the fervor of someone getting a letter from a long lost friend.

'DoctorJohn,

I'm not sure what to write here. 

I was just reading back through one of your stories. I'm finding more and more, to my own complete confusion, that I've become a bit of a romantic. 

Telling you what I do for a living and what I look like seems tame next to telling you that, so I think I'll hold off. What you really need to know is how utterly transformative reading your stories has been on my life. I'm finding out about myself for the first time, I fear.

And, although I am quite appalled by what I am about to write, I must ask all the same. Will you write me a new story? A story about a lonely doctor meeting the man of his dreams?

Anonymous'

"God," John murmured, head falling forward and eyes closing. 

How on earth was his life turning out this way? He'd spent years feeling numb and unimpressed by those around him, and now he had two men in his life that were constantly taking his breath away. He breathed in deeply, just to assure himself he was still capable, and wrote back.

'Anon,

Tell me who the man of his dreams might be.

DoctorJohn'

He hit send and only had to wait a few moments before he got his reply. He made a mental note to ask Anonymous if he would mind downloading some sort of messaging app.

'DoctorJohn,

I wouldn't for a second get in the way of your imagination. Surprise me, as you always do.

Anonymous'

John's lips curled and he ran a hand through his hair, opening his rucksack and pulling out his laptop.


	11. My Own

Sherlock was in a great deal of pain. It had been an hour since John woke, having actually slept fairly well, and he could hear the other man rousing and hissing. He wanted to go to the door, to knock and see if there was anything he could do, but he remembered how easily that sort of hovering could get annoying. Instead, he went about making breakfast.

He'd been to the Tesco down the street a half hour prior and lugged back a good amount of food. Mrs Hudson, Sherlock's overly cheery landlady, had warned against using anything in the fridge, without telling him why. He'd have to talk to Sherlock about moving things around a bit in the fridge, as it was cramped with things he was hesitant to touch, but he'd figured that would wait for later. A later that he hoped still involved him moving in.

He cracked a few eggs and went about making two omelettes, chopping onion and mushroom and adding in cheese as he listened to Sherlock grumble in the shower. His hands needed to be busy with the thought of Sherlock in the shower spinning round his mind. They itched to be elsewhere.

Sherlock finally emerged from the shower, face grimaced in pain, wearing nothing but a low-slung towel around his waist. John's fingers twitched even as he took in the bruising.

Sherlock looked at him, taken by sheer confusion, and let out a deep breath. "Oh, you're still here."

It was said so blandly that John wasn't sure whether it was meant as disappointment or not. He hoped not.

"Sit down and I'll bandage your ribs again," he said plating both omelettes and bringing them to the kitchen table. "Have you taken anything for the pain yet."

"I could go for a cigarette," Sherlock said, sitting with a grunt.

John snorted and went to the icebox. "Over my dead body."

He missed the frown from Sherlock, as his back was turned, but felt it in the air somehow.

"Haven't you better things to do than refuse me some relief?" Sherlock asked, fork poking holes in the omelette all on one edge in a way that suggested that he saw the food as medium for art rather than sustenance.

"You'd like it if I had work today, wouldn't you?" John chuckled, not at all put off by the man's behavior.

"Do an injured man a favor," Sherlock replied, head falling forward in exasperation.

John set the new ice pack down and wandered towards Sherlock's bedroom.

"It's in the loo!" Sherlock shrieked, just as John had gone to touch the door handle. "The bandage. It's in the loo."

John wondered what sort of self-pleasuring objects he might have found strewn across the bed if he continued, but kept the thought to himself. The man was married to his work and seemed keen enough on his own that he wasn't left wanting. John only wished he could be so...self sufficient.

John found the bandage and old ice pack abandoned on the floor in the loo, along with two other towels. He rolled his eyes and hung the towels, to avoid a wet sock later on, and went about wrapping the new ice pack, along with the bandage and insulation, around Sherlock's thin frame.

"Are you going to eat?" he asked as his hands roamed over Sherlock's back and sides.

"I'd forgot for a second you were a doctor," Sherlock mumbled, eyes closed as he tried to not let John's nimble fingers wake his cock.

"Did you?" John asked, chuckling and letting his hands rest on Sherlock's shoulders.

Sherlock turned so that the full effect of his rolled eyes could be felt and John just laughed harder. He continued his pout as John sat across from him and carefully cut a piece of the omelette with the edge of his fork.

"I'll eat if you eat," John said, holding the piece up.

Sherlock frowned and crossed his arms. "How often does that work on your other patients?"

"Not sure, haven't had a toddler in my care in a while," John said, taking the bite and chewing it with a satisfied grin.

"Are you always this insistent?"

"Are YOU?" John asked, cutting a second piece. "Eat half and I'll leave you alone."

Sherlock stuck out his hand and then wiggled it until John took it in a firm shake. John was sure he'd just lost some sort of bet, but he couldn't be arsed to care.

Sherlock cut the omelette in half and managed to fit it all in his mouth in one obscene bite. John felt sweat prick on the back of his neck at the practical display of how much he could fit in his mouth.

"Charming," he said, sipping his tea.

Sherlock tried to smile smugly and chew at the same time and didn't quite succeed. He mumbled something and, when it wasn't understood, took John's tea from him and choked it all down.

"How long," and Sherlock had to pause there to cough a bit, wincing, "how long do I get left alone?"

"Until lunch," John said, taking their plates and bringing them to the sink.

Sherlock wasn't sure why it seemed important, but he stored away the fact that John had eaten precisely half of his own omelette.

_____

It took Sherlock the best of an hour to get up the energy to even put on pants, but once he'd emerged from his bedroom clad in soft pyjama trousers and an equally soft tshirt, he found John sitting on the sofa typing away on his laptop. He made tea quietly, having not exactly enjoyed the two mouthfuls he'd filched earlier, before going to sit in his chair with his own laptop.

"Sit across from me," he said once he'd settled.

John looked up, one eyebrow raised.

"Quit being stubborn and just trust that I know best!" Sherlock fussed. "The sofa will be bad for your back."

John smiled, it coming on slowly and then crackling across his face, and moved to the chair opposite Sherlock. A soft flush made it up Sherlock's neck and he grumbled to himself while fiddling with his laptop. John huffed out a small laugh and went back to what he'd been doing; editing the first chapter of his newest story.

With the finishing touches in place, he posted it, sending an alert directly to his anonymous reader and secretly hoping, though it was foolish, that the bastard sat across from him would find it too. Sherlock, though, didn't seem the type to read such things, especially his new story, which he admitted to himself is a bit more romantic than the last few. He took a deep breath, closed the lid to his laptop, and opened the paper.

Across from him, a whole world shifted.

_____

He'd been anonymous! He went through each of his interactions with the writer over again, heart beating roughly in his chest, and found nothing that the man could have gone on. Anonymous, completely anonymous!

How it had happened that the lonely doctor had met, and somehow fallen for, a man so like himself was a mystery. 

He read over the first few paragraphs again. In the story, the doctor's flatmate (and at that Sherlock sent a confused look John's way) was a scientist. He was a grumpy scientist with a coif of unruly hair. The doctor denied his early attraction, assuring himself that the man was uninterested. Now they were standing out on the kerb in the middle of the night after an experiment gone rogue had made the flat uninhabitable for the time being. 

And, oh, the doctor's breath caught at the way the evening breeze shifted the scientist's hair, at the way the moonlight made his skin nearly glow. The man looked unearthly in that light, black smudges from the experiment covering one cheek and his chin, eyes fuzzy as he tried to understand what had gone wrong to cause the explosion.

The doctor wanted to touch that glowing skin, wanted to kiss that jaw-

"You alright?" John asked, causing Sherlock's eyes to flit from the page up to meet his across the way.

Sherlock shifted, frazzled. "What?"

"You just, you were squirming. Like you're in pain. Do you want another paracetamol after all?"

Sherlock frowned. He was shifting to adjust his burgeoning erection. How one was meant to explain that, he didn't know, and didn't want to find out.

"I'm fine," he grumbled sinking lower in his seat and waiting patiently for John to go back to reading the newspaper.

When John did, he read on. The doctor brushed the fringe from the scientist's brow and both men shuddered. 'You're mad,' the doctor said, smiling gently, even after the fright just minutes prior.

Sherlock closed his eyes, jaw tightening. He wanted to sing, giggle and gasp. He found himself laughing and then coughing and his laptop was set aside as John rubbed his back gently and told him to breathe. He tried to do so, breathing deeply through the pain, and glanced up into John's eyes. 'My doctor,' he thought, 'my own.'

"Good," John said, a bit of concern still colouring his face, "good. Breathe. Just like that."

And Sherlock did.


	12. The Usual Interruptions

Their faces were too close, what with John leaning over him, hand pressed so bloody intimately to his chest. If it had been hard to breathe earlier, choking on a frazzled laugh, it was impossible now.

John seemed to see the moment that he'd been touching Sherlock too long, but he didn't back away. Instead, he knelt awkwardly at Sherlock's feet, hand dropping to one arm of the chair. He licked his lips, eyebrows furrowed, and shifted a bit on his knees. The moment pulled around Sherlock's shoulders and he slumped forward slightly, knowing what his lips, and teeth, and tongue, wanted.

That, of course, as is so often the way, was when Greg Lestrade entered the scene. He burst through the door, already speaking, and came upon a scene that could have been painted in oil, a scene brazenly speaking of seduction.

"I-I-" he sputtered, feeling even more out of place as the two men in front of him refused to break their gaze. "Should I come back later?"

John's right eyebrow lifted, bounced once as if to propose just that, and Sherlock shook his head. No. Not now. Not yet.

John pursed his lips and rose to his feet, ignoring the ache in his leg, and turned to Lestrade, taking a few quick steps and closing the space between them. "Greg, was it?"

"Yes, I didn't know you two were..." Greg said, letting the sentence hang unfinished for one of the men to pick up.

"Flatmates," Sherlock said, voice finally back.

Greg looked unconvinced and John cleared his throat. 

"Recent flatmates," John added, posture stiffening slightly.

"Which is none of your business," Sherlock added, finally standing and joining them by the door. 

John's lips curled slightly and he turned a bit towards Sherlock.

"Yeah, right. Well, I thought I'd give you this, since-" Lestrade returned, holding a file out and pulling his hand back as it was snatched away.

"A case," Sherlock said, flipping through the pages wildly.

"You're not leaving the house," John reminded him. "Doctor's orders."

"Doctor's recommendation," Sherlock countered, "hardly set in stone."

"Bed rest if you keep this up," John shot back crossing his arms and pursing his lips again, this time more challenge than agitation.

Lestrade cleared his throat, seeming to think it would get someone's attention. It didn't. He went on anyways. "You don't have to leave the flat. It's a cold case. Everything is in the file. We have a murder victim and the murderer, both dead, in a locked room."

"I'll have to see the room, the building," Sherlock said, taking the file to the sofa and starting to spread the photos out.

"There are samples, you can look them up online. The building was demolished last year. Like I said, you don't have to leave," Greg said, taking a step forward and watching John carefully.

"Demolished," Sherlock murmured, as if the word held all the answers. "Yes, fine, you can leave, then."

John glared at him and Sherlock added a quick smile to Greg. The man hadn't honestly been looking for a thank you, he'd worked with Sherlock too long to expect that, and found it funny that Sherlock seemed so keen to not upset his minder. Greg promised himself he'd look the doctor up once he was home, see where the hell he'd come from.

"Good to see you again," John said, kindly enough.

"You too," Greg said, not sure yet if he meant it.

John watched him go and then closed the door and went to loom over Sherlock. He hadn't meant to loom, really, but his curiosity got the best of him.

"Laptop," Sherlock said, patting the sofa cushion next to him and waiting for John to comply.

Instead of setting the laptop in that place, as Sherlock thought he'd been clear enough in suggesting, John sat there himself. Sherlock took a deep breath, turned the laptop away from John's gaze for a second, and started searching, trying to ignore the heat emanating from John's body.


	13. Moving In

Sherlock had done this bit before, telling John things about himself John wouldn't even admit to the mirror, but this time it was different. Instead of concise points, clear sentences that left John gasping for breath, Sherlock spouted ideas. 

John had to concentrate, harder than he had since uni, to pull the ideas together. Sherlock would say something about the building's construction and skip along to some other topic, leaving John to wonder how a window could have caused the deaths.

It took three more hours, and the grumbling of his stomach, before John could manage to think about anything other than what Sherlock was saying, the way he was saying it, and how impossibly long the man's eyelashes were. He stood and stretched, wincing as his shoulder protested, and ran a hand through his hair. Sherlock was still completely transfixed by the laptop as John went to pull together some cold sandwiches and start the kettle.

When John finally took the seat next to Sherlock on the sofa again, it was to trade a plate of food for the laptop. Well, attempt to. He got an actual growl out of the detective and sat back, one eyebrow raised.

"I'm almost there, John! So close! Why can't I figure it out?" Sherlock hissed, fingers tapping out a staccato a rhythm, unstoppable.

"Low blood sugar?" John asked, wryly.

Sherlock glanced up at him, fingers pausing menacingly above the keys, and looked horrified by the accusation. "You made me eat breakfast. Of course I can't think!"

"Half the sandwich," John said, prying the laptop from Sherlock's fingers and setting the plate on his spindly knees.

"I suppose it couldn't make me any worse," Sherlock whinged, taking an offended bite and reminding John of that morning.

"Remember to chew," John teased, setting the laptop on the floor and starting in on his own sandwich.

"I won't put up with this mother-henning forever, you know," Sherlock said, licking a bit of mustard from his upper lip and pulling the crust from the bread.

John snorted and passed over his napkin. "Threat noted." 

Sherlock took the napkin and kept it for himself, sighing deeply and picking at his food. John took measured bites, his appetite still not recovered completely from his time in hospital. His therapist seemed to think it was part of his PTSD, but he'd convinced himself it was nothing more than a bad habit stemming from too much of the same food.

"How long would it take you to resort to cannibalism?" Sherlock asked after a long time silent.

John nearly choked on his sandwich. "Sorry. What? Why the hell would you ask me that?"

"Small talk?" Sherlock said. He wasn't sure exactly how he was meant to act around normal people, and, although John was interesting to him, he was also normal.

John set his plate aside, done eating what he could, and stood from the sofa. "Live or dead bodies?" he asked calmly, taking one last sip of his tea.

Sherlock pondered that for a second and shrugged. "Does it matter?"

"One's murder, Sherlock. I'd hope it matters," John said, fond smile stealing across his face. "I'm off to gather my things from my flat. Don't go disappearing on me."

Sherlock nodded once and pulled the laptop back onto his knees, bending over it and looking particularly insect-like as John watched him for a second more before leaving.

_____

John stopped to buy a few boxes, flat cardboard unwieldy and poking at his underarm as he walked along the street. The store was a short walk from his flat-his old flat, he reminded himself- and it seemed at the time the better idea to walk. He took a second to fold down the flaps and get a better hold on the boxes before continuing on his way, thinking to himself that Sherlock would have been able to carry them just fine, what with his ridiculous arms.

And he stopped, right there on the walkway, thinking how funny it was that he felt like he'd known the man for years. Two days and they'd slotted together like long lost puzzle pieces. 'Where did you come from?' he wanted to ask. 'Where on earth did you come from?'

He picked up the pace, feeling the first few drops of rain and cursing at how this always seemed to happen, just as a dark sedan pulled to the kerb beside him and a door opened to block his way. He was in the middle of stuttering out a curse when he caught sight of the woman sitting in the back.

She was gorgeous, hair up in a fierce knot on her head and intense eyes on the screen of her Blackberry. He only had a second to admire her before the strongman got out and 'convinced' him to ride along, unused cardboard boxes abandoned on the kerb.

_____

It had been hours since John had left to gather his things, at least two. Sherlock had solved the case and was reading through DoctorJohn's newest story again when John stumbled through the door, one box in his arms and another at his heels.

"Ran into a friend of yours," he said, huffing and setting the first box down. "Had to buy these boxes twice. Should have charged him."

"Friend?" Sherlock asked, looking up, puzzled, from his laptop.

John pushed the second box into the flat and collapsed back into his chair. "Enemy. Who the hell has enemies?"

Sherlock leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "What did he want?"

"Wanted me to spy on you," John said, head lolling back and sweat beading on his brow. "For money, if you can believe that."

"Did you take it?" Sherlock asked.

"No," John said, eyebrows furrowed and lips pursing on the second letter.

"Pity," Sherlock said, leaning back. "We could have split the fee."

John snorted and looked up as Mrs Hudson entered the room.

"Oh, John," she said with a smile. "You've brought your things. How nice."

"Tea?" John asked, hopeful.

She narrowed her eyes but acquiesced. "Just this once."


	14. Of Course

The revelation came later that evening. John was exhausted-understandably so, when had Sherlock not been exhausted after a meeting with his brother-and had fallen asleep in his chair with his fingers on the keys of his laptop.

To move it, to pick it up from his lap, would be bad, Sherlock decided. The last thing he needed was John waking up with a start. Instead, he went around the back of John's chair and leaned over it to read. John's head was slumped to one side, leaving bare an interesting patch of neck, and Sherlock allowed himself to sniff it once before reaching over John's shoulder to touch the mousepad. And then, yes, he smelled him again. It was...soothing somehow. Skin and Salonpas and something warm and spicy.

The screen came to life and Sherlock blinked at it. The clues were all there, the answer obvious, but how could...how could it be?

Sherlock drew back and found himself stumbling to the shower, stripping his clothes and stepping under a spray so cold he would have to think. Think. Think.

John. 

How had he not seen it? John was a doctor, for Christ's sake, and dull enough to not think that the handle DoctorJohn would be redundant. And that was somehow charming and he had no clue how he found anything charming, let alone something so stupid.

"Where on earth did you come from?" Sherlock asked, shivering under the spray and scrubbing at his skin.

A knock came to the door and Sherlock stilled, all but his teeth going stiff as a board.

"Sherlock? Um, are you alright?" John asked from the other side, the soft sound of his hand on the wood pulling at something in Sherlock's chest.

Sherlock made a sound he hoped was close enough to a yes.

There was a sigh and the shadows of John's feet moving at the bottom of the door. "It's just, you were cursing a lot. Do you need anything?"

Sherlock turned the shower off and stood there for a moment in silence. When John shuffled his feet again he bit down on the instinct to tell him to go to hell, and cleared his throat. "I'm fine, John."

'But do tell me about this flatmate you had that was soooo very interesting,' he wanted to add. 'This handsome scientist of yours.'

"Okay," John said, uncertainty bleeding into his words. "Well, I've got work in the morning, so I'm going to head to bed."

'To dream about him,' Sherlock thought bitterly. 

_____

The next morning at breakfast Sherlock sat strangely close to John. John could feel the brush of his arm each time he took a bite of his food or pushed it around the plate.

"Was there," John tried, clearing his throat against the lump in it, "was there something you needed?"

"Who did you live with before me?" Sherlock asked, cocking his head like an owl and narrowing his eyes.

"I didn't live with anyone, it was just a bedsit," John answered, scooting his chair back.

"Not then, before," Sherlock clarified. "Before, before."

John thought on it. "Oh...um, lived with Mike for a year in uni. Dr Stamford, at Bart's."

Sherlock snorted and rolled his eyes. "Well, not him, obviously."

"Sorry?" John asked. "You asking about someone in particular?"

"Between Mike and myself," Sherlock said, pushing his plate back and crossing his arms.

"Well, between Mike and you I was in the army," John said, hoping that would satisfy the man.

"The army," Sherlock mumbled. "Of course."

And with that, he was gone. Off to his bedroom and slamming the door and leaving John to wonder what the hell had just happened.


	15. Major Issues

Sherlock must have been feeling better, because instead of sitting in his chair and pouting, he followed John to the tube station, walking along with him and asking all kinds of questions about the army. 

What kinds of scientists worked in the army?  
Were there any scientists John knew in the army?  
Who did John bunk with in the army?   
Did John miss anyone from the army?

The only person John could really name was Bill Murray. Yes, he missed Bill. They'd been fairly close, as friendships went with John. He'd never been very good at being a friend, always too worried about showing too much to someone, whether he admitted it to himself or not.

"Bill's still active duty," John explained, standing at the entrance to his tube station, hands stuffed in his pockets and somehow hesitant to leave Sherlock.

"What was his position?" Sherlock asked, moving out of the way of the throng of people going to work and pulling John by his sleeve.

"He was just a soldier. Nothing specific," John replied.

Sherlock nodded, face serious and with what he hoped would be perceived as understanding. "But you were in love with him."

"I was in-what?" John yelped, looking around as if afraid someone he might know was listening in.

"Not in love, then. Lust, perhaps," Sherlock said, head cocking to the side as he tried to read John's body language.

"What gave you the impression-no. No. I wasn't...Bill was just a mate," John replied quickly, his mind shifting back to Major Sholto, who was very much not 'just a mate'.

Sherlock peered at him carefully and nodded again, this time more slowly. "Not Bill."

John shook his head and turned to go, stopping on the top step to say one more thing. "Jesus, Sherlock. I don't know what you're thinking, but I have to go. Don't...just, leave it." 

Exactly what Sherlock suspected. There was definitely something there. It would only take time, time and a bit of digging.

_____

The first role he assumed was a mere bit of stolen valor. Pretending to be an ex-soldier was hardly illegal, he thought, though he knew the act was frowned upon. The chat group he infiltrated was set up by John's therapist for his fellow soldiers. John had, of course, obvious, refused to take part. The fact that he knew John, and a bit of sweet talk, got him the information he needed.

There was only one man outside of Bill Murray that John spoke to. That man's name was James. Major James Sholto.

Sherlock admired the man, admired his choice to move into the middle of nowhere and fall off the map. If Sherlock himself were a better man, he thought, less bound to the entertainment of the city, he would do the same.

Sherlock didn't believe for a second that James had done anything wrong. Things had gone wrong, yes, for him and his men, but he wasn't incompetent. He was by the books. As Sherlock went through his files, the ones he could access without streaking too many laws, he had to admit the man was handsome. Handsome and serious and so very in control. 

He envied the man for that last bit alone. He'd never felt particularly in control, never once in his life. He felt even less in control when he came across a photo of James sitting with his men. He must not have known the photo was being taken because, and something fluttered in Sherlock's stomach at it, he was smiling. Soft, and uninhibited, James was smiling.

Sherlock hated him. Hated.

_____

At lunch, to stop himself from calling Sherlock to see how he was doing, John logged on and checked his comment section. His story had been up for a while and there were the usual comments, the ones that kept him posting, and then one he hadn't expected. ANONYMOUS. And surely it wasn't his Anonymous, not the one he talked to, because he had stopped posting comments once they'd picked up correspondence through email. 

YOU CAN SEE HOW MUCH THE CHARACTERS CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER. MAKES ME WONDER WHO YOU BASED THEM ON. 

John started to reply and then stopped, opening an email instead and sending it out that way. A question. A simple, 'Was that you?'. The response came immediately.

JOHN. YES, THAT WAS ME. I SUPPOSE I SHOULD EXPLAIN MYSELF. I HAD THOUGHT, THROUGH OUR TALKING, THAT YOU WERE UNATTACHED, AS I AM, BUT WHEN I READ THE NEW CHAPTER I REALISED THAT ASSUMPTION WAS INCORRECT. I'M AFRAID I CAN'T CONTINUE TO WRITE TO YOU IN A PERSONAL MANNER WHILE YOU PINE OVER THIS OTHER MAN. I APOLOGISE FOR THE MISUNDERSTANDING.

ANONYMOUS

Shit. Buggering shit. John knew something like this would happen. He was stupid to go out on a limb and write about a version of Sherlock, when he knew he couldn't have him. Bloody stupid. And, yes, he hadn't even met his Anonymous, and perhaps they wouldn't ever have, but he felt something there. He'd buggered it all up, and had no way to take it back and now he was left with a man who was very obviously not interested in him.

He wrote back, platitudes and understanding. And spent the rest of his lunch staring at the wall and thinking about how it had all gone wrong. How he'd thrown it all away for a man he'd known less than a week. He thought back on the encounter with the ponce in the warehouse and realised that he was right, well sort of, when he said John trusted Sherlock very quickly. The fact was, he'd fallen just as quickly as he trusted.

_____

Something was wrong when John got home. He walked through the door a bit slowly and his smile didn't reach his eyes. Sherlock, refusing to admit he cared that John was no longer going to flirt with Anonymous, rifled through the newspaper a bit and stayed sat on the sofa.

"I'll, uh, make some tea, then," John said, going to the kitchen and running the water until his eyes focused a bit more.

"Was thinking we'd just stay in tonight," Sherlock said in a tone that approached conversational but didn't quite make it. "Rifle around on the Internet."

John looked over at him and rolled his eyes, seeing something Sherlock was sure wasn't there. His face looked...fond. "Yeah, good plan, seeing as I wouldn't let you out of the flat even if you begged," and there was a sigh in there, along with the fond smile. "Chinese?"

Sherlock grunted and went to gather the takeout menus together. He hoped wildly that John would notice that he'd cultivated the best grouping of them. He wouldn't go for just any chow mien, no matter how much was knocked off the price. 

('See that I'm special,' his mind begged.)

John started tea and came to sit next to Sherlock on the sofa while he called in their order, Sherlock begging off anything more than soup, and then they sat there for a while sipping their tea before either of them said a thing.

"Good day at work, then?" Sherlock asked, and bloody hell, he was bringing out SMALL TALK.

John hummed and smiled at him, raising his eyebrows sympathetically. "Good day sitting around doing nothing?"

Sherlock slumped and let his head fall back. "My mind is melting."

John chuckled and brushed Sherlock's hair from his brow and went to get him a fresh ice pack.

This time, when John touched his skin it felt so much like a lie. 'You want to be touching James,' he thought. 'You want to be healing him.'


	16. Obviously

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The actual big reveal

It took nearly a week, and the next chapter of John's story, for everything to blow up. The chapter, written late at night while John lay guilty in bed, was rather steamy. In it, the scientist and doctor had some long-awaited sex and lay in bed afterwards grinning and kissing. Sherlock read it and nearly lost his mind.

He couldn't put it all together. Major Sholto wasn't a scientist. Was John changing it just enough that if James ran across it he wouldn't suspect? Why did he change the Major's appearance? None of it made sense.

The next morning, after days of silence from Sherlock, John took the bull by the horns.

"What did I do?" he asked, sure he'd crossed some invisible line.

Sherlock glanced up from his laptop with a scowl. "I'm sure I have no idea what you mean."

"There, right there," John said, pointing an accusatory finger at Sherlock and crossing into the sitting room to the sofa. "You're angry with me. You've been angry with me for days."

"It's in your head," Sherlock said with a dismissive wave.

"Don't you," John said, suddenly clenching his jaw and taking a steadying breath that didn't quite do its job, "don't you dare say that to me."

Sherlock was shocked into silence. This wasn't what he wanted. He tried for an apology that wouldn't incriminate himself.

"I didn't mean to say-" he sputtered.

John shook his head and went to put his jacket on. "Stop. I'm going for a drink. Not sure when I'll be back."

Sherlock jumped to his feet and followed John to the door, eyebrows knit with worry. "But you'll be back," he said, uncertain.

John huffed and shook his head. "I bloody live here," he grumbled.

Sherlock watched him leave and stood facing the closed door for nearly a half hour trying to get his head together.

_____

John texted Greg when he got to the Fox and Hound, and asked him if he wanted to meet up for a pint. In truth, they weren't friends, but John didn't want to drink alone and Greg was the only person in his phone besides his sister and Sherlock. Hell, he didn't have any friends. That was sort of his way, he supposed, only letting himself be open with one person at a time. 

It was a depressing thought, because Sherlock was that person. He was the only person John considered a friend, and they'd only just met. It made John feel like a bit of a failure. But honestly, what was he meant to do? Get a backup friend?

Greg arrived when John was just starting in on his second pint, and took a seat next to him. He raised his hand to the barmaid and got a pint of his own, sipping at it and clearing his throat.

"Sherlock trouble?" he asked, fairly sure that was what it was about, as they didn't have anything else in common.

John snorted and let his head fall forward. "What else?"

"What did he do this time? Break into your laptop?" Greg asked.

"What?" John replied, looking over at Greg with sudden panic.

"I asked if he broke into your laptop. He does that with everyone if that helps. It's nothing personal. He's gone through my whole work computer, read every email I ever sent, and that's password protected," Greg added.

John set some money down on the bar and stood. "Sorry, uh, I have to go. I'll get you the next one, yeah?"

Greg nodded and watched him go. Bit of a domestic, then. As he suspected.

_____

John caught a cab home and jogged up the stairs. Sherlock was sitting on the sofa with his knees tucked up under his chin. He looked expectantly at John when he walked in.

"You went through my laptop," John said, panting a bit. "That's why you're angry."

"It wasn't as if your password was difficult. You really should update that," Sherlock said, curling in on himself again.

John sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He felt like such a pervert, caught writing smut about his uninterested flatmate. "You weren't meant to read that story."

"Yes, well, I did. Would have ended up reading it anyhow. I should have recognised your writing straight away," Sherlock said, standing up and walking past John to the kitchen. "And your screen name? Should have guessed it the second we met."

John stared at his back in utter confusion. "You knew about my stories when we met?"

Sherlock stopped. Oh, didn't mean to give that away, then.

"You've read my stories?" John asked, feeling wrung dry and itchy. "Multiple stories. You're one of my readers?"

"I may have been, at one time," Sherlock said, filling the kettle and refusing to look at anything but his own hands.

John walked towards the kitchen, almost close enough to reach out and touch Sherlock. His head was spinning. At one time, at one time, but not now. "What does that mean?"

"I suppose I just don't like reading about the Major," Sherlock replied, somehow forgetting that he was meant to be in trouble due to how painfully jealous he was.

"Who?" John asked.

Sherlock sighed, slamming the kettle onto its charger, and turned. "Your incredibly handsome ex-flatmate. The man you're still in love with, the one you're writing about now. Major Sholto."

That did several things to John. The first of which was a clenching in his stomach as he thought about James and how they had been torn apart before their time. It felt like a physical wound. Somehow, sickeningly, at the same time he felt a flood of deep relief. Sherlock had no idea that he was in love with him. He was off the hook, in the clear.

"I'm not writing about James, and it's really not on that you looked him up," John said, going to lean against the far wall.

Sherlock took in a quick breath and seemed to be put on pause for a few moments. John tried to look relaxed, hoping he wouldn't be found out.

"Not Sholto," Sherlock said, taking a staggering step forward.

John cleared his throat and looked to the floor. "No, not Major Sholto."

"Well, if it's not him, and it's definitely not Mike, then that only leaves me and he wouldn't-you, you wouldn't-" Sherlock sputtered, having trouble keeping the John in front of him and the writer John separate. Except...that wasn't it. That was where he was wrong. John was the writer and the writer was John and John had hit on him that first night because he- "you want to kiss me."

When John looked up his eyes were glassy and he was clearly on his way to seeing that pint and a half again. He shook his head once and swallowed deeply. "I-"

Sherlock took two sweeping steps towards him and kissed him with all the pain and longing he'd felt since that first story. John's skin was hot and his lips were mobile and soft and Sherlock only pulled back after a moment to make sure he hadn't got any of it wrong.

"That's, uh," John sighed, lips quirking.

"I knew I'd love you," Sherlock said, stunning even himself, "from the very first story. And you wrote back, and I wanted so badly to touch you."

John shook his head slowly from side to side and ran his hands up to grip Sherlock's neck. "You wrote to me?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "I'm Anonymous. Obviously, John, do keep up."

John huffed out a laugh and pulled him in for another searing kiss.


	17. Easy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our happy ending.

Kissing was surprisingly pleasurable, the thought that he was sharing saliva didn't even come to mind, and Sherlock found himself giving in, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be touching tongues with someone. It felt silly to wish for things to go slower, what with the revelation coming so forcibly and with so much feeling, but it did. John pressed increasingly gentle kisses to Sherlock's lips and neck. 

"This whole time I felt like I was cheating on you, the you that wrote me," John whispered, running his hands gently along Sherlock's sides. 

"John," Sherlock murmured, somehow incapable of saying anything else.

John pulled Sherlock to him and rubbed his face against his neck, breathing there. "You were so upset. You wrote that last comment and I felt horrible," John added. "I'd pushed you away and I thought the person I'd done it for didn't have any interest in me."

"That's not true," Sherlock said, melting into John's touch.

"I know that now, you git," John said, pulling back and grinning up at him. 

"We should, that is, could we," Sherlock tried, swallowing and finally looking at the floor. He couldn't ask for what he wanted, couldn't seem to find the courage to form the words. He hated himself, all this time wanting and he was dumbstruck as to what to do.

Why was John doing this? Why was he depending on Sherlock to move things in the right direction? 'God,' he wanted to scream, 'just do what you will', because he knew, instinctively, that what John wanted was what he wanted. That he wanted everything and anything John wanted to give him.

"Come to bed with me," John said at length, taking a chance and hoping he'd read things right. Sherlock nodded and John let out a sigh and kissed his neck.

Sherlock followed him upstairs to his bed and let John slowly strip him, the sound of the rain hitting the window outside soothing his frayed nerves slightly. The sky seemed to have broken just when they did, the pouring rain mimicking their fevered confessions. Unrelenting, desperate.

"You're gorgeous," John whispered, hands running down Sherlock's chest and over his ribs delicately. "Lay down now. Get under the covers, yeah?"

Sherlock climbed onto the bed, his pants the only thing saving his decency, and pulled the covers all the way up to his chin. John pulled off his kit and quickly slid under the covers as well, bringing Sherlock to him and kissing his forehead.

"How do your ribs feel?"

Sherlock shrugged, and breathed John in. "Still tender."

John ran his hand down Sherlock's chest and the man arched into his touch, gasping and gripping John's hip, his own hips pressing forward against his will.

"Well, hello," John said, grinning and licking his lips.

Sherlock closed his eyes tightly and ran a hand up into John's hair. It was so soft between his fingers, so soft. "Hello," he all but breathed.

"Tell me if I'm going to fast," John said as he let his hand trail lower to brush into the short, thick curls at the base of Sherlock's cock.

And, oh, that did something to Sherlock. His mind went fuzzy and he felt out of breath, and for a second, just a second, mind you, he reckoned he might pass out. It was the closest to delirious he'd ever felt without chemical enhancement. Strange, how different John's hand felt from his own.

"Is that a good sound?" John asked with a small huff.

Apparently Sherlock had been grunting or something more horrifying. He nodded quickly and pulled so John rolled onto his side. There was a bit of panic that came along with it, panic from wanting something so badly and not being able to name it.

"Christ, you're so gorgeous," John murmured, leaning in again to lick at the seam of Sherlock's lips.

Sherlock opened his mouth and thrust his hips in silent plea as he tasted beer and mint on John's tongue. He tried to follow John's lead, tried to mirror his mouth, but thinking was becoming a difficult task and he had to pull back to breathe, just bloody breathe for a second.

John was talking, saying something in a tone that Sherlock found lovely, everything about John just then was lovely. His lovely fingers wrapped around Sherlock's cock and the word slipped from his mind, replaced with a groan of more and gnashing teeth. God. Good god. What on Earth?

John murmured assurances into Sherlock's neck and stroked him faster, thrusting his own hips against one slim thigh. The words were so close to the ones John had spoken the second time they'd met. 'Brilliant, truly brilliant,' and 'amazing.' Gorgeous was thrown in there, too, for a third time, and Sherlock melted into those words and burned up and seized and came with a shout.

John slowed his hand and coaxed out the last of Sherlock's orgasm before grunting and stilling and coming in his own pants against Sherlock's thigh.

Time was skipping. Sherlock couldn't focus and he felt as if he'd been hollowed out and filled with something fluffy and light. The feeling was the exact opposite of discomfort and he let his body shift as John pulled his pants off and wiped him clean and got out of the bed.

"John?" he said, just as John was standing.

John turned and looked back at him, his face in shadow and impossible to read. "Yeah?"

"You will be coming back, won't you?" Sherlock ventured, his voice a fair bit more broken than he'd hoped for.

"Course, love," John said with a happy sigh. "Just closing the door."

Sherlock nodded and let his eyes close against the light from the window. When John climbed back into bed Sherlock crawled to him and wrapped around him tightly. John chuckled and ran his hand through Sherlock's hair.

"Now's the bit where we cuddle, right?" Sherlock asked.

John brushed the man's curls from his brow and kissed the damp skin. "Yeah, that's it exactly."

"Could we do that for the rest of the afternoon?" Sherlock murmured, already sounding sleepy.

"Anything you want," John answered.

Sherlock shifted a bit, wondering how to phrase the question on his mind. He decided on straight forward. "Was this just sex?"

"God, no," John said, leaning back a bit to look into Sherlock's eyes. "No. This...this was more. You know, it's happened quite fast, but this is...this is what I want."

"For us to have sex," Sherlock said, a bit confused, but pretending not to be.

John huffed and found himself up against the wall. He had never had to lay his feelings out so plainly before. He wasn't one for saying how he felt. That had to change, though, because he couldn't bugger this up. "I-I only want to be with you."

"Monogamous," Sherlock said.

John smiled at the single word response and tried on one of his own. "Yes."

"So you're my boyfriend, then. That's..." Sherlock trailed off.

"Good?" John asked, suddenly nervous.

"This was much easier than I'd imagined," Sherlock replied, overcome with feeling.

Now John was confused. "What?"

"Getting a boyfriend," Sherlock said.

John started to laugh and Sherlock laughed along with him. 

"Christ," John said, "this counts as easy to you?"

"Well," Sherlock admitted, still laughing, "if you put it that way."

John relaxed again and drew patterns on Sherlock's back, soothing him to sleep and feeling each breath, each minute shift. It felt like he was finally home.


End file.
